After the storm on September 26th, we thought the Northern Resident had left “for good”. But today told a different story!
Our morning started very early with a humpback vocalizing in Blackfish Sound during Julia’s night shift. Then nothing – until Alex relayed a radio report at 12:19pm that the A62s were in Johnstone Strait! We jumped out of excitement and started scanning the Strait with our remote cameras. A few blows were spotted westbound along the Cracroft Island shore. Our hopes for the return of Northern Residents were dashed when a later report indicated that these whales were actually Bigg’s orcas.
Georgia was able to watch the Bigg’s actively foraging in the rip for about an hour from our Cracroft Point camera until 2:21pm when they came close to the entrance of Blackney Pass. They made very faint calls as they continued their journey west in the Strait. The group was identified as likely the T023s.
Encouraged by the presence of orcas, albeit Bigg’s, we still had high hopes that some Northern Residents were not too far away and decided to play the kelp horns to call them in! A playful concerto took place on the lab deck. Less than four hours later, Jared reported the A62s at Donegal Head heading for Weynton at 4:45pm! Waw! Magical kelp horns!
At 6:21pm, we started hearing them in Johnstone Strait. It felt so good. After almost 3 days without hearing Northern Residents calls, we were all very relieved to hear their distinctive calls once again. Nora described their calls as excited. We listened as their calls changed as they travelled east in Johnstone Strait. After the initial excited calls on entry their calls became fainter and sporadic until 7pm as they came into range of the Kaizumi hydrophone, by 7:45pm, their calls were louder and more excited on our Strider rubbing beach hydrophone as they began their approach to the Ecological Reserve, at 8pm their calls stopped only to resume at 9:29pm. By 10:47pm, we definitely knew that they were in the Robson Bight (Michael Bigg) Ecological Reserve. The A62s continued their calls sporadically until 11:25pm and were heard solely on the Strider hydrophone. About ten minutes later, Georgia heard what sounded to be “chuffs” along Strider rubbing beach, but as there had not been any consistent calls for about an hour, only hearing a faint call here and there, it was uncertain at first if this was an actual rub by the A62s or just the wake of a boat passing by. With Claire’s help, it was determined that it was indeed a rub which lasted from 11:35pm to 11:38pm.
Some echolocation on our Main rubbing beach hydrophone at midnight convinced us that the A62s continued east after their rub. Hopefully, this will not be the last we hear from them!
The humpbacks had already started calling as night descended and before the A62s were well on their way east in the Strait. From 10:07pm, loud humpback social calls and even some short presongs on Parson Island continued well into the night. These calls and songs increasingly keep us company during the solitude of night shifts.
Side note: we counted 120 sea lions hauled out on the sea lion rocks just south of the lab!
